Anti-Judaism
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Anti-Judaism describes a range of historic and current ideologies which are totally or partially based on opposition to Judaism, on the denial or the abrogation of the Mosaic covenant, and the replacement of Jewish people by the adherents of another religion, political theology, or way of life which is held to have superseded theirs as the "light to the nations" or God's chosen people. The opposition is maintained by the appropriation and adaptation of Jewish prophecy and texts, and the stigmatization of the very people who transmitted those texts. According to David Nirenberg there have been Christian,[1] Islamic, nationalistic, Enlightenment rationalist, and socio-economic variations of this theme.
There are three types of Anti-Judaism according to Douglas Hare: (1) Prophetic Anti-judaism - the criticism of the beliefs and religious practices of the religion; (2) Jewish-Christian anti-Judaism - Jews who believe that Jesus is the Messiah; and (3) Gentilizing anti-Judaism - emphasis on the gentile character of the new movement and claiming God's rejection of the "old" Israel.[2] Most scholarly analyses appear concerned with the phenomenon described by his third definition.
According to Gavin Langmuir, it is based on "total or partial opposition to Judaism as a religion—and the total or partial opposition to Jews as adherents of it—by persons who accept a competing system of beliefs and practices and consider certain genuine Judaic beliefs and practices inferior."[3]
As the rejection of a particular way of thinking about God, anti-Judaism is distinct from antisemitism but historically, it has also encouraged the development of racial antisemitism, a racist ideology which was articulated in the 19th century. Some scholars have found intersections between theology and racism and as a result, they have coined the term religious antisemitism.
Other examples of anti-Judaism include the Islamic doctrine of tahrif and other forms of enmity,[4] and Karl Marx regarding capitalism as essentially Jewish and therefore evil.[5]
Pre-Christian Roman Empire
In Ancient Rome, religion was an integral part of the civil government. Beginning with the Roman Senate's declaration of the divinity of Julius Caesar on 1 January 42 BC, some
The crisis under Caligula (37–41) has been proposed as the "first open break between Rome and the Jews", even though problems were already evident during the Census of Quirinius in 6 and under Sejanus (before 31).[a]
After the
Flavius Clemens was put to death in 95 CE for "living a Jewish life" or "drifting into Jewish ways", an accusation also frequently made against Early Christians,[23] and which may well have been related to the administration of the Jewish tax under Domitian.[c]
The Roman Empire
Christian anti-Judaism
Early Christianity and the Judaizers
The main distinction of the Early Christian community from its Jewish roots was the belief that
The
The
Anti-Judaic polemic
Anti-Judaic works of this period include
Taylor has observed that theological Christian anti-Judaism "emerge[d] from the church's efforts to resolve the contradictions inherent in its simultaneous appropriation and rejection of different elements of the Jewish tradition."[38]
Modern scholars believe that Judaism may have been a missionary religion in the early centuries of the Christian or common era, converting so-called proselytes,[39] and thus competition for the religious loyalties of gentiles drove anti-Judaism.[40][41] The debate and dialogue moved from polemic to bitter verbal and written attacks one against the other. However, since the last decades of the 20th century, the view that a proselytizing struggle between turn of the era Judaism and early Christianity may have been the main generator of anti-Jewish attitudes among early gentile believers in Jesus is eroding.[42] Scholars have revisited the traditional claims about Jewish proselytizing and have largely concluded that active Jewish proselytizing was a later apologetic construct that does not reflect the reality of first century Judaism.[43]
A statement about whether scrolls could be left to burn in a fire on the Sabbath is attributed to
Though Emperor
From Constantine to the 8th century
When
After his defeat of Licinius in 323 CE, Constantine showed Christians marked political preference. He repressed Jewish proselytism and forbade Jews from
From the middle of the 5th century, apologetics ceased with
All these theological and polemical attacks combined in
"There are legions of theologians, historians and writers who write about the Jews the same as Chrysostom:
From the 4th to 7th centuries, while the bishops opposed Judaism in writing, the Empire enacted a variety of civil laws against Jews, such as forbidding them from holding public office, and an oppressive curial tax.
Through this period Jewish revolts continued. During the
The pattern wherein Jews were relatively free under pagan rulers until the Christian conversion of the leadership, as seen with Constantine, would be repeated in the lands beyond the now collapsed Roman Empire.
After the 8th century
Beginning with the
The Church kept to its theological anti-Judaism and, favoring the mighty and rich, was careful not to encourage the passions of the people.[70] But while it sometimes interfered on behalf of the Jews when they were the objects of mob fury, it at the same time fueled the fury by combating Judaism.[70]
During the Reformation
Scholarly analyses and contrasts
"The terms 'anti-Judaism' (the Christian aversion toward the Jewish religion) and 'antisemitism' (aversion toward the Jews as a racial or ethnic group) are omnipresent in the controversies over the churches' responsibility with regard to the extermination of the Jews" and "since 1945, most of the works on 'anti-Semitism' have contrasted this term with 'anti-Judaism'".[75][76]
According to Jeanne Favret-Saada, the scientific analysis of the links and difference between both terms is made difficult for two reasons. First is the definition: some scholars argue that anti-Judaic refers to Christian theology and to Christian theology only while others argue that the term applies also to the discriminatory policy of the churches [...]. Some authors also advance that eighteenth-century catechisms were "antisemitic" and others argue that the term cannot be used before the date of its first appearance in 1879. The second difficulty is that these two concepts place themselves in different contexts: the old and religious for the anti-Judaism' the new and political for anti-Semitism.[75]
As examples regarding the nuances put forward by scholars:
- Leon Poliakov, in The History of Anti-Semitism (1991) describes a transition from anti-Judaism to an atheist anti-Semitism going in parallel with the transition from religion to science, as if the former had vanished in the later and therefore differentiating both. In The Aryan Myth (1995) he nevertheless writes that with the arrival of anti-Semitism, "the ineradicable feelings and resentments of the Christian West were to be expressed thereafter in a new vocabulary". According to Jeanne Fabret, "[if] there were fewer Christians going to church during the age of science, [...] religious representations kept shaping minds.[75]
- For blood libelis another example of antisemitism, though it is based in distorted notions of Judaism.
- David Nirenberg, in his 2013 book Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition considers the allegation of Jewish impiety toward the gods and misanthropy, a core element of anti-Judaism in the version formulated by Manetho, to reflect a pathology arising in ancient Egypt, that came to underwrite Western civilization, flowing thereafter from Nicene Christianity, through Islam and the Crusades to Enlightenment Universalism to the present day[79][80] defining it as a "theoretical framework for making sense of the world in terms of Jews and Judaism."[81]
- In agreeing with Nirenberg's analysis and conclusion while recommending the book, Early Christianity as "warring sects of mostly ex-pagan gentiles", stating that "the war was against heresy; the target was other gentile Christians. But the ammunition of choice was anti-Judaism.[82]
- Jean-Paul Sartre's essay The Anti-Semite and the Jew observes that "if the Jew did not exist, the antisemite would invent him."
- Anti-Judaism has been distinguished from antisemitism based upon racial or ethnic grounds (racial antisemitism). "The dividing line [is] the possibility of effective conversion [...]. [A] Jew ceases[] to be a Jew upon baptism." However, with racial antisemitism, "the assimilated Jew [is] still a Jew, even after baptism [...]." According to William Nichols, "[f]rom the Enlightenment onward, it is no longer possible to draw clear lines of distinction between religious and racial forms of hostility towards Jews [...]. Once Jews have been emancipated and secular thinking makes its appearance without leaving behind the old Christian hostility towards Jews, the new term antisemitism becomes almost unavoidable, even before explicitly racist doctrines appear."[83]
- Similarly, in Anna Bikont's investigation of "the massacre of Jews in wartime Jedwabne, Poland" in The Crime and the Silence, she recognizes the presence of antisemitism as a result of religious influence that is blurred with anti-Judaism characteristics.[84] Bikont's explanation of life in Poland as a Jew post World War I reveals how it is often difficult to distinguish between anti-Judaism and antisemitism during this time of growing anti-Judaic ideology. Poles and Jews "lived separate lives and spoke different languages" which prevented Jews from fully assimilating into Poland culture.[85] Jewish religious culture remained present and Jew's "social and cultural life ran on a separate track" compared to Poles.[85] The ethnic differences were made more obvious through the obvious differences in culture which fuel anti-Judaic acts. Although Jews ran separate lives from Poles, they coexisted for a long time. "Jews, especially the young, got along fine in Polish, but at home they spoke Yiddish."[85] Socially, Jews and Poles often participated in "picnics, festivities [together]… but Jews [were] often met with an unfriendly response from Poles, and in the latter half of the thirties they were simply through own of these organizations."[85] Bikont believes that negative views towards Jews were reinforced through religious organizations like the Catholic Church and National Party in northern Europe. "The lives of Catholics revolved around the parish and the world of churchgoers, as well as events organized by the National Party, which was blatant in its exclusion of Jews.[85] Bikont considers that the murderous actions towards Jews in Poland resulted from "[teachings of] contempt and hostility towards Jews, feelings that were reinforced in the course of their upbringing."[86] These events are classified as antisemitic because of the change from increase of hostility and exclusion. The delusional perception of Jews escalated in 1933 when there was a "[revolution that] swept up the whole town... 'Shooting, windows broken, shutters closed, women shrieking, running home."[87] Bikont believes that these violent aggressions towards Jews are considered acts of antisemitism because they are performed as revolutionary acts that were a part of the National Party's agenda. Much of the difference between defining anti-Judaism from antisemitism relies on the source of influence for beliefs and actions against Jews. Once Jews were viewed as the other from Poles, the discrimination transformed from ideology of religion to race which are shown through acts of violence.
Islamic anti-Judaism
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This section possibly contains original research. (March 2016) |
A prominent place in the
]Between the 9th and 13th centuries
Throughout the Islamic Golden Age, the relatively tolerant societies of the various caliphates were still, on occasion, driven to enforce discriminatory laws against members of the Jewish faith. Examples of these and more extreme persecutions occurred under the authority of multiple, radical Muslim Movements such as that of the Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah in the 11th century, the Almohad Caliphate in the 12th century, and in the 1160s CE Shiite Abd al-Nabi ibn Mahdi who was an Imam of Yemen.[90]
During the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period
Differentiation laws were enforced much more regularly following the decline of secular influence within Islamic society and external threats posed by non-Muslims.[90]
Modernist and Enlightenment Antijudaism
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Karl Marx in On the Jewish Question, 1843, argued that Judaism is not only a religion, because it is an attitude of alienation from the world resulting from the ownership of money and private property, and this feeling of alienation is not exclusive to the Jews. Rather than forcibly converting Jews to Christianity, he proposed the implementation of a program of anti-Capitalism, in order to liberate the world from Judaism, thus defined. By framing his revolutionary economic and political project as the liberation of the world from Judaism, Marx expressed a "messianic desire" that was itself "quite Christian,"[91] according to David Nirenberg.
See also
- Antireligion and antitheism
- Anti-Semitism
- Anti-Zionism
- Christianity and Judaism
- Christianity and other religions
- Christian–Jewish reconciliation
- Christian observances of Jewish holidays
- Christian views on the Old Covenant
- Christian Zionism
- Groups claiming affiliation with Israelites
- Judaizers
- Philosemitism
- Anti-Christian sentiment
- Criticism of Christianity
- History of Christianity
- Criticism of Islam
- Criticism of Israel
- Criticism of Judaism
- Criticism of religion
- History of Islam
- Islam and other religions
- Islamophobia
- History of religion
- Jewish history
- Jewish religious movements
- Jewish schisms
- Jewish views on religious pluralism
- Judaism and violence
- Persecution of early Christians by the Jews
- Persecution of Jews
- History of Zionism
- History of Israel
Notes
- East."[18]
- ^ "In an effort to wipe out all memory of the bond between the Jews and the land, Hadrian changed the name of the province from Iudaea to Syria-Palestina, a name that became common in non-Jewish literature."[19]
- Judaizing tendencies ..."[24]
- ^ "In effect, they [Jewish Christians] seemed to regard Christianity as an affirmation of every aspect of contemporary Judaism, with the addition of one extra belief—that Jesus was the Messiah. Unless males were circumcised, they could not be saved (Acts 15:1)."[28]
- ^ See also Council of Jerusalem
- ^ n.b. source likely means Cyprian's later treatise, Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews bound under the title of his first treatise; so linked here
References
- ^ Nirenberg 2013, Ch. 3, The Early Church: Making Sense of the World in Jewish Terms.
- ISBN 0-8028-4498-7. Retrieved 17 April 2024.
- ^ Langmuir (1971, 383), [1] cited by Abulafia (1998, part II, 77).
- ^ Nirenberg 2013, Ch. 4, "To every prophet an adversary": Jewish Enmity in Islam.
- ^ Beatty, Aidan (12 November 2015). "Race, History, and Karl Marx's Jewish Questions". Aidan Beatty Historian and Teacher. Archived from the original on 16 November 2015. Retrieved 17 April 2024.
- ^ a b Lazare (1903), p. 63
- ^ Lazare (1903), p. 64
- ^ Andrew J. Schoenfeld,"Sons of Israel in Caesar's Service: Jewish Soldiers in the Roman Military", Shofar Vol. 24, No. 3 (Spring 2006), pp. 115–126, p.117: "As a larger corpus of Jewish inscriptions and artifacts from the ancient world has become available, it has become clear that the observance of Judaism in the Roman world was far more variegated than previously supposed."
- ^ Wilson Stephen G. Related Strangers: Jews and Christians (1995) 20–21 which elaborated on Gager J. The Origins of Antisemitism (1983) 35–112.
- ^ Ashbrook, Harvey Susan; DesRosiers, Nathaniel; Lander, Shira L.; Pastis, Jacqueline Z.; Ullucci, Daniel, eds. (2015). A most reliable witness: Essays in honor of Ross Shepard Kraemer. Part I: Jews and Christians in the Greco-Roman World.[page needed]
- ^ Bibliowicz Abel M., Jewish-Christian Relations: The First Centuries (Mascarat, 2019); Wilson Stephen G., Related Strangers: Jews and Christians (1995) 20–21
- ISBN 978-1-625-64575-3pp.201–202.
- ^ Trotter 2019 p.27
- ^ Schoenfeld, 2006, p.115–116: "The participation of Jews in the Roman military is a topic that is underemphasized or frankly ignored by historians".
- ISBN 978-0-520-23502-1pp. 209–217, 209–213.
- ISBN 978-9-004-40985-9pp. 29–32, 32, n.55.
- ^ a b Canfora p. 213.
- ^ Ben-Sasson (1976), pp. 254–256, The Crisis Under Gaius Caligula
- ^ Ben-Sasson (1976), p. 334
- ^ Jacobson 2001, p. 44–45:"Hadrian officially renamed Judea Syria Palaestina after his Roman armies suppressed the Bar-Kokhba Revolt (the Second Jewish Revolt) in 135 C.E.; this is commonly viewed as a move intended to sever the connection of the Jews to their historical homeland. However, that Jewish writers such as Philo, in particular, and Josephus, who flourished while Judea was still formally in existence, used the name Palestine for the Land of Israel in their Greek works, suggests that this interpretation of history is mistaken. Hadrian's choice of Syria Palaestina may be more correctly seen as a rationalization of the name of the new province, in accordance with its area being far larger than geographical Judea. Indeed, Syria Palaestina had an ancient pedigree that was intimately linked with the area of greater Israel."</ref>
- ISBN 0195036077.
- ISBN 978-1513616483.
- ISBN 978-3-161-49192-4pp.141–143
- ^ Dio Cassius 67.14.1–2, 68.1.2; History of the Jewish People, H. H. Ben-Sasson editor, page 322
- ISBN 0809136104, Pp 190-192.
- ISBN 0802844987, Pp 33-34.
- ISBN 0195118758, p. 426.
- ISBN 1405108991, Page 174
- ^ Taylor (1995), pp. 127–128
- ^ Elshtain, Jean Bethke (2004-05-18). "Anti-Semitism or anti-Judaism?". Christian Century. Retrieved 2007-02-01.
- ^ a b Lazare (1903), p. 49
- ^ Hopkins, Keith. A World Full of Gods. Great Britain: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999.
- ^ Lazare (1903), p. 50
- ^ Taylor (1995), p. 128
- ^ Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem.
- ^ Lazare (1903), p. 61
- ^ Taylor (1995), p. 115
- ^ Taylor (1995), p. 127
- ^ Taylor (1995), p. 8
- ^ { M. Simon, Versus Israel-Jews and Christians in the Roman Empire (1986)
- ^ Taylor (1995), p. 7
- ISBN 0800662091.
- ISBN 0415049725.
- ^ Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines - The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (2006) pg 57-58
- ^ Kuhn (1960) and Maier (1962) cited by Paget in 'The Written Gospel' (2005), pg 210
- ^ Friedlander (1899) cited in Pearson in 'Gnosticism, Judaism and Egyptian Christianity' (1990)
- ^ "POINT BY POINT OUTLINE - SHABBOS 116". Archived from the original on 2007-10-12. Retrieved 2008-02-11.
- ^ a b Lazare (1903), p. 56
- ^ "ANF01. The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus – Christian Classics Ethereal Library". Archived from the original on 2005-07-12. Retrieved 2007-01-08.
- ^ Philippe Bobichon, "Préceptes éternels et Loi mosaïque dans le Dialogue avec Tryphon de Justin Martyr", Revue Biblique 3/2 (2004), pp. 238-254; Philippe Bobichon, "¿ Como se integra el tema de la filiación en la obra y en el pensamiento de Justino ?", in: P. de Navascués Benlloch, M. Crespo Losada, A. Sáez Gutiérrez (dir.), Filiación. Cultura pagana, religión de Israel, orígenes del cristianismo, vol. III, Madrid, 2011, pp. 337-378 online article
- ^ Lazare (1903), p. 57
- ^ a b Lazare (1903), p. 60
- ^ Taylor (1995), p. 48
- ^ Taylor (1995), p. 49
- ^ Taylor (1995), p. 47
- ^ Lazare (1903), p. 59
- ^ a b Lazare (1903), p. 72
- ^ a b c d Lazare (1903), p. 73
- ^ a b Lazare (1903), p. 66
- ^ a b c d e Lazare (1903), pp. 67–68
- ^ Saint John Chrysostom: Eight Homilies Against the Jews
- ^ Lazare (1903), pp. 70–71
- ^ Lazare (1903), pp. 76–80
- ^ Abrahamson et al. The Persian conquest of Jerusalem in 614 compared with Islamic conquest of 638.
- ISBN 1-55111-290-6.
- ^ a b Lazare (1903), p. 87
- ^ Lazare (1903), p. 86
- ^ a b c d Lazare (1903), pp. 116–117
- ^ Lazare (1903), pp. 111–114
- ^ a b c d e Lazare (1903), pp. 114–115
- ^ McAlister, Elizabeth. "The Jew in the Haitian Imagination: A Popular History of Anti-Judaism and Proto-Racism. In Henry Goldschmidt and Elizabeth McAlister, eds., Race, Nation and Religion in the Americas. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004, 61-82."
- ^ Johnson, Paul: A History of the Jews (1987), p.242
- ^ Bainton, Roland: Here I Stand, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, New American Library, 1983), p. 297
- ISBN 9004139141.
- ^ a b c Jeanne Favret-Saada, A fuzzy distinction – Anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism (An excerpt from Le Judaisme et ses Juifs), Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 2014.
- ISBN 0802824153.
- ^ a b Abulafia (1998, part II, 77), referring to Langmuir (1971).
- ^ Abulafia (1998, part II, 77), citing Langmuir (1971, 383–389).
- ^ Nirenberg 2013.
- ^ Dobkowski, Michael N. (April 11, 2013). "Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition by David Nirenberg: Review". Jewish Book Council.
- ^ Nirenberg 2013, p. 464.
- ^ Fredriksen 2013.
- ISBN 0876683987.
- ISBN 9780374710323.
- ^ a b c d e Bikont, Anna (2004). The Crime and the Silence. Polish Translation Program. p. 24.
- ^ Bikont, Anna (2004). The Crime and the Silence. Poland Translation Program. p. 26.
- ^ Bikont, Anna (2004). The Crime and the Silence. Poland Translation Program. p. 27.
- ^ Encyclopedia of Islam, Uzayr
- Encyclopedia of Islam
- ^ a b Cohen, Mark; Stillmann, Norman (June 1991). "The Neo-Lachrymose Conception of Jewish-Arab History". Tikkun. Retrieved 1 May 2016.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Nirenberg 2013, p. 4.
Bibliography
- Lazare, Bernard (1903). Antisemitism: Its History and Causes. New York: International Library.
- Langmuir, Gavin (1971). "Anti-Judaism as the necessary preparation for anti-Semitism". Viator, 2: p. 383.
- Ben-Sasson, H. H. (1976). A History of the Jewish People. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674397312.
- Jacobson, David (2001), "When Palestine Meant Israel", Biblical Archaeology Review, 27 (3)
- Taylor, Miriam S. (1995). Anti-Judaism and Early Christian Identity: A Critique of the Scholarly Consensus. Leiden, New York, Köln: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 9004021353.
- Abulafia, Anna Sapir (ed)(1998). Christians and Jews in Dispute: Disputational Literature and the Rise of Anti-Judaism in the West (c. 1000-1150) (Variorum Collected Studies Series). Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate. ISBN 0-86078-661-7.
- ISBN 0-395-77927-8.
- ISBN 978-0-393-34791-3.
- Fredriksen, Paula (9 December 2013). "Anti-Judaism and Early Christianity: on David Nirenbergs "Anti-Judaism, the Western Tradition"". Marginalia: LA Review of Books. Archived from the original on 24 June 2021. Retrieved 15 June 2021.
- .
- ISBN 9780960338207.